The Rescue of Flight 103

Summary: A flight bound to Rome is hijacked. Follow the story of an experience Delta Force Major, Alfred F. Jones in his struggle to save 180 passengers and crew, including his boyfriend, Arthur Kirkland.

Athens

It
was a warm day in Athens and summer in Greece was even lovelier for the usually
grumpy Englishman who was getting ready to board his flight in half an hour,
when the van would pick the entire crew up from the hotel and get them to the
airport for the pre-flight briefing. Arthur had received a letter from his
lover from New York, where he would be flying this afternoon. His name was
Alfred F. Jones and he had the rank of Major within the US Delta Force, which
Arthur had no idea what it was but didn’t care. The letter said that he would
be waiting for him at the airport and would take him to the best dinner he had
ever had in his life, before ending the evening with a series of romantic
cuddles in Alfred’s house. Arthur had blushed when he had read the things that
Alfred wanted to do with him when they were alone in his bed.

The
young Chief Steward fixed his black uniform in front of the full-length mirror
of the hotel room and put on his jacket before leaving it with his light
baggage to join his colleagues and the pilots. He had rolled his eyes when he
saw the crewmembers’ list that morning. He would have to supervise the stupid
Vargas brothers, those incompetent Italians who could not even turn on an oven
without burning the entire galley. The last time they had cooked a meal it had
burned, literally, there was fire coming out of the oven and it managed to
reach the curtain which caused a panic to spread among the passengers of
Economy Class and Arthur’s section, First Class, when they realised they had a
fire on board. The plane had to make an emergency landing at Hong Kong en route
from Los Angeles and they were not fired because their father was the primary
investor of Pan Atlantic Airways. He was also surprised, and not in a good way,
to see the name of Captain Bonnefoy in the list. He was a snobby Frenchman who
was always doing his best to piss him off so he would lose his temper in front
of the passengers or fellow flight attendants, so he can be discredited. He
hated travelling with that captain.

He
was flying with Feliks in the First Class. He was a – very – feminine Polish
flight attendant who had fled his country in hopes of a better life in the
United States or the United Kingdom ten years ago and, upon finishing high
school and without any future projects, he decided to apply for the job of
flight attendant in Pan Atlantic, which was in need of male cabin crew. As the
years passed, his boss realised he had potential and sent him to First Class
almost immediately after being hired. That was not the first time Arthur had
flown with him. He wouldn’t say they were friends, but he had fun with the Pole
during long-haul flights like the one they would have to board that day.

“Everything
set to go to the airport?”

Arthur
asked Feliks, who was toying with a lock of his shoulder-length blonde hair in
the lobby, looking bored at his nails. Arthur was checking the time in the
watch he had received from Alfred. It had the Statue of Liberty in the
background. It was almost noon and the flight would leave in about two hours.

“Almost,
the bus is late”

Feliks
said, without looking up at him. He pulled his hair up and looked at himself in
the reflection of his small mirror. Arthur had to roll his eyes at his
co-worker’s feminine behaviour. He identified himself with the figure of the
Chevalier d’Eon and had tried to make his bosses approve his request to wear a
woman’s uniform, but he was thoroughly denied and made fun of, but he was the
strongest person Arthur knew. He wouldn’t bow down in front of anyone and wouldn’t
let anything bother him. The Englishman would never admit it, but he admired
the Polish young man. Finally, the bus arrived and the pilots where the first
to climb in. Arthur had to again
roll his eyes at his co-workers’ behaviour, but didn’t mind as he sat as far
away from who he thought was Captain Bonnefoy – as he was seeing him from the
back – as he could.

As
Arthur was doing in the hotel lobby, several kilometres away from them, Farah
Dahan was checking her watch while fixing her hair in the mirror of the small
apartment the Party gave to her and to her fellow Party members once they were
commissioned a specific task abroad their home in a refugees’ camp in Lebanon.
She was waiting for Gupta Muhammad Hassan, her long-time friend and colleague.
Suddenly, two knocks on the door indicated her that Gupta was waiting outside.

“Come in”

She
said in Arabic as she opened the door for Gupta, who entered the safe house and
sat down at the small table in the kitchen, across the living room. Farah closed
and locked the door and sat down across Gupta, who opened his bag and took out
two hand-grenades and two loaded guns, as well as a blueprint of the Boeing
707. Inside of the bag there was also a bunch of wires and C4 explosives, whose
position in the plane had to be discussed after the Zuhr.

“I talked with Sadiq this morning and
everything is set”

Gupta
said in a whisper, because they had been taught, in the deserts of the Middle
East, gun in hand that all the walls, even the fortified ones, were paper-thin
and anyone could hear them talking and that could spoil their mission. Farah
pursed her lips and nodded.

“Where is he right now?”

Sadiq
Adnan, a Turkish man who had been a member of the Party several years, had been
their commander during their training for the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine, when they were both young and inexperienced children of refugees
from Israel. Farah and her family had been expelled from their home in her
native Haifa in 1948 upon the creation of the State of Israel by the – what she
and her family thought – cruel Jews. Gupta’s story was not much different than
Farah’s and Sadiq had pulled them both out of their misery with promises of
great riches when they achieved their goal to drive the Jews out of Palestine
and return to their beloved homes.

In
their current mission, the chain of command was not that obvious as one would
think. Sadiq was, obviously that is, the head of the entire operation but he
would not carry weaponry. He was followed by Farah, who, despite being a woman
in a world of men as it was the world of Islam, she had excelled in her
military training in the refugees’ camp and her face was well-known within the
Party. Gupta was the one that would have to go through the doors carrying the
armament in his bag.

Right
now, there were more important things to focus on, as the clock was chiming
from the wall.

“It doesn’t matter”

Farah
said, getting up from the table. They washed themselves and each of them
extended a deep red sajjada over the dusty floor and stood over it with their
hands raised.

“Allahu Akbar”

They
both said in a whisper before kneeling down. Over the table, next to the
explosives and the guns, there were two tickets for Pan Atlantic flight 103 to
New York.

Ellinikon
Airport was crowded by the time Toris Laurinatis arrived in a taxi from his
hotel in downtown Athens. He had been in Greece for two weeks parading around
the Greek capital with important documents in his attaché case for his boss,
Mr. Braginsky, who he was going to meet in New York and deliver said documents
to. It was a stressful job, but, at least, the company paid him a First Class
ticket every time he travelled abroad. He loved to see the flight attendants
walk by offering champagne or caviar with that elegance that characterized
them. He preferred when the flight attendants, instead of being beautiful
women, were cute boys so he could admire them throughout all the flight. Two
years ago, in a flight from New York to Buenos Aires, he had fallen in love
with a cute blonde flight attendant of First Class with shoulder-length, soft
looking and nice smelling hair and emerald eyes. He had an Eastern European
accent that made him look even more exotic. He had asked him for a glass of
champagne every time he saw him walk by with that slight sway of his hips. The
boy had started calling him “Mr. Champagne” by the arrival at Ezeiza Airport in
Buenos Aires. He was surprised he didn’t get even a little tipsy and mentally
congratulated himself in not having made a fool out of himself in front of the
cute flight attendant. He had travelled to several continents after that flight
to Argentina, but he had never had the opportunity to see that flight attendant
again and, after the first year went by, he lost all hope.

He
shook his head. He shouldn’t be thinking about that flight attendant. He went
to the Ambassadors’ Club, the upper lounge of the airport, where he also found
several First Class passengers of Pan Atlantic flights throughout all Europe, and
sat down in one of the comfortable blue couches, overl0oking the tarmac and
watching all those beautiful airplanes parade: Lufthansa, Air France, Alitalia,
and, most especially Pan Atlantic. There was a couple arguing in one of the
faraway couches, near the bar. The man looked nervous and the woman looked
pissed.

“I
told you, Roderick, there was no way we could have brought your damn piano on our honeymoon!”

The
man, Roderick, rolled his eyes and huffed. The woman smiled warmly and put an
arm around his shoulders, nuzzling her face into his neck, making him blush
deeply.

“Didn’t
you have a good time without it?”

She
asked. He cleared his throat and gently pushed her away, to which she responded
with a frown.

“Yes,
I did... but I would have had a better time with it, Elisabetta”

She
sighed and got up. She asked the bartender for the strongest drink he could
make her and she drank it in one sip, surprising her husband.

The
Pan Atlantic B-707 was standing in the tarmac, under the heating Greek sun
waiting for permission to taxi to the Terminal. The crew had already boarded
it, after the fifteen-minute briefing. Inside the aircraft, the air
conditioning was working perfectly, as the engines were working as well. Arthur
had gathered the entire cabin crew in the First Class cabin.

Captain
Bonnefoy came out of the cockpit and approached Arthur from behind, putting his
hands over his shoulders, making him shiver visibly.

“Arthur,
I was surprised to see your name on the crew list this morning”

Arthur
didn’t turn around and spoke looking at his crew.

“Well,
life is full of surprises”

“One
would’ve thought that you would have quitted flying after what happened in
Spain”

Arthur
turned around with a glare in his face, red with anger. Feliks noticed and put
his arms around the Italian brothers, pushing them towards Economy Class.

“Let’s
inspect the lavatories, shall we?”

The
two Italians left and Feliks did also. When there was nobody in the cabin,
Arthur looked around and spoke in a heated whisper.

“Listen,
that was a black day in my life and I’m not going to consent anybody,
especially not you, from brining
that up when I’m about to board the plane...”

“I
didn’t mean to make you upset, Arthur, it wasn’t your fault. What happened
there...”

“It
doesn’t matter!”

Arthur stormed off to one of the
lavatories, where he locked himself to calm down. A year ago, when he wasn't
yet the Chief Steward and was working in Economy, a young Spanish man named
Antonio had boarded a Pan Atlantic flight from Malaga to Madrid and New York
with a small child he always called Romano. The kid was grumpy as an old man
and kept calling the older man a "bastard", to Arthur that was quite
amusing. Suddenly, during the first leg of the trip, one of the engines caught
fire after an explosion and the wing began leaking fuel. When they landed at
Barajas, the fire spread to the fuselage. He opened the door and deployed the
slide for the passengers to evacuate the burning aircraft. He went back into
the cabin and grabbed the hand of the little boy, followed by his tutor, but an
explosion shook the plane and he lost them in the thick smoke. Later on, he
found out that they had gone, along with a few other passengers, lost to the
front of the aircraft, the place more affected by the fire. He had blamed
himself for the death of all those people, especially the little boy, but
thanks to therapy and his lover Alfred was able to let it go.

When he came out of the lavatory, his crew
was waiting for him in the First Class cabin and the captain was nowhere to be
seen, so he took a deep breath and composed himself.

"Ok, listen, the captain told me that
we would start boarding in a couple minutes. The flight is full until we get to
London and then sixty passengers will deplane and ten more will board the
flight to New York. I hope you behave in the way it's expected from the
airline's personnel"

The
PA announcement could be heard throughout the Terminal in several languages,
and the passengers started to get up from their seats and head to Gate 1-15.
Toris got up from his comfortable couch, sighing, with his passport and ticket
in the hand that was not holding his briefcase. The Edelstein couple got up
also, and Elisabetta draped the shawl over her naked shoulders. Among the
passengers that headed to the gate were Farah and Gupta, who was holding his
bag too tightly to be something legal. They were talking in Arabic to each
other.

“Were in Allah’s name is Sadiq?”

Farah
asked quite upset and handing her ticket to the stewardess. She was wearing a
black wig and a light blue skirt suit with white shoes and gloves.

“I don’t know, he should be here already!”

Gupta
said, as upset as she was before giving his ticket to the stewardess after
Farah boarded the plane.

Arthur
and Feliks were receiving the passengers in the First Class cabin, as it was
where the boarding was being made. Farah and Gupta, holding tight to his bag,
made their way to the back of the plane, where they would be seated, and the
First Class passengers took their seats in the front cabin. When it was Toris’
turn to board, he stopped in his tracks upon seeing the flight attendant which
who he had dreamed for two years: Feliks.

Chapters

Ruby0h:
Overall I thought your story was really good! It drew me in right away and kept me interested as the story progressed. I loved the character of Kayla being inserted into this story, and the way she affected and shaped the life of the original story into something totally new and interesting. I lo...

Jordan Young:
*ALERT FOR POSSIBLE SPOILERS* Where to start? I don't know how to sum up this review, this story was absolutely sensational. Brilliant. Flawless. I loved every single bit of this story, it is truly amazing. I read this story in fifteen hours, it is magnificent. I loved everything about it, the p...

Jean Tryon:
As a beta, I found this story outstanding!! Plot, grammar, phraseology, etc Rachel gives us it all. She takes the story into the future from where due South ends. She is an exacting and thoughtful author.

Julia Summers PA:
Reading this now. It's fun, hilariously fabulous yet taste of what you desire in a unusual read. I will post an actual review when I am finished. But so far loving the flow and the story seems to keep me drawn

Usagi Kita:
This story is emotional from beginning to end. You get to watch the characters struggle and grow, maturing in different ways so that they come to be the people they are meant to be. Inea is insanely adorable, and his antics made me laugh more than once, and Kaedon is perfect for him in so many wa...

LouiseJ2:
I enjoyed the detail you went into with regards to the case. It made the UNSUB appear believable. The crisis in the middle of the story was my favorite part, very dramatic but not over the top. I feel like sometimes pairings can be overdone but I liked that some of the relationships were a little...

Nadine Willard:
I loved this story so much! I generally can't stand super girly romance stories, but this one was so relatable! I could not stop reading this, I read it straight through!! I wish this was a series, not just a single story 😊

Animeviewer:
It is one of the best stories I've ever read. This story will have you riding a roller coaster of emotions and nearly dying to know what happens next.You will get very attached to the characters and in my case I relate well with some of their very traumatic or emotional experiences, Just Juliet f...

ga1984:
I really enjoyed it! Characters were deep and plot was pretty complex. A bit on the violent side but it doesnt detract from the story. Very dark but situations make sense. Ends kinda abruptly and later chapters will need some editing work. I'm assuming there's more in the works?

Alex Rushmer:
This was not what I expected, but I enjoyed it a lot Malfoy was always one of the characters that I liked a lot, so I like that a lot of this happens between him and Colette. I read the first couple chapters, and I enjoyed your writing style and am excited to see where you take this story. My com...